DR. CANDLISH'S LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. • A PuLPrr orator,
with average ability, can always become distin- guished among his own persuasion. The test of a great preacher is the effect he-produces on minds not brought up in his peculiar views of religious doctrine, or accustomed to the mannerism as it were of the sect. Tried in this way, Dr. Candlish will not equal some divines Of a more catholic creed or a more catholic disposition. He is not free from the dogmatic rigidness ascribed to Calvinism, and-is touched with the iteration of the platform, almost running at times into what is called "ringing the changes," besides having the more individual turn towards a something that is meant for dry humour. There is at times, we think, a tendency to force the argument in a different direction from what it seems naturally to go, putting a strain upon the text. On the other hand, he has great force both of illustration and of driving home the argument, and also the Christian lesson. He imparts breadth and unity to his general view, and keeps its lead- ing feature distinctly before the reader, without allowing second- ary points to distract attention, whatever particular importance may be given to them in their own place. These last peculiarities are clearly displayed in the long series of Sermons before us. The subject, as may readily be supposed from the title, is the Resurrection ; and this of necessity ramifies in various directions, but shortly the leading views are two. Christ died for our sins, and rose again in the flesh to redeem us from the effect of our sins. For this purpose the resurrection of the lady was an absolute necessity.. The immortality of the soul may be received quite independently of revelation, and the belief may as likely lead to evil as to good. The resurrection of Christ was not even necessary to establish the resurrection of the body ; for that, Dr. Candlish conceives, may be inferred if not positively proved from other parts of Scripture. But the death of Christ Would not have sufficed, in the preacher's opinion, to redeem man from sin ; he interprets the text Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished" to mean that without the resur- rection no believer could be saved—" but for His rising from the dead they Lour sins] must have been cleaving to him still." This is not the place to enter into a discussion on doctrine ; but logic- Life its a Risen Sariour • being Discourses on the Argument of the Fifteenth Ohapter of First Corinthians. By Robert S. Candlish, D.D. Published by Black, jAhnbulIn• . ally we do not follow Dr. Candlish to his conclusion, and in one branch of his argument he appears to depart from the obvious drift of St. Paul. The conclusion upon this point being put aside, the preacher handles with great power the evils to which a devia- tion from the broad principle of the apostle may lead, producing heresy in doctrine, presumption in mind, profligacy in life. There is an ancient example, according to the preacher, in the tenets of the Gnostics.
"The unseen future after death stretches itself out before me, when it is the immortality of the soul only that is my hope. It wears a dreamy, ideal, unsubstantial character; apt to become more and more dim, in- tangible, impersonal ; till I am almost fain to lose myself, like those old visionaries in the East, in the great thought of all finite intelligences being at last absorbed into the one Infinite Mind.
"Some such tendency as this has always been found more or less avowedly associated with the mere belief of the soul's natural immortality, apart from the doctrine of a bodily resurrection. "It was, in point of fact, a tendency most marked and decided in the case of those heresiarchs who were already marring the simple gospel by the in- troduction of Oriental subtleties. The favourite dogma of these Grnostics, or knowing ones,—that matter is in itself essentially and incurably corrupt, and is the cause of all corruption,—compelled them to deny the possibility of a literal bodily resurrection. Nothing but a spiritual resurrection could find a place in their creed ; and they held that, in the case of believers, or, at least, in the case of the initiated, that spiritual resurrection was past already.' The soul, renovated by faith, is raised to newness of life. In its new life, it is hindered and held down by the body, until death sets it free. Then, instantly, or after a period of probation or purgation, the slough of the flesh is cast off ; and ever after, for ever, all is well.
"From this speculative theory of theirs two practical conclusions flowed. It led them to throw the entire blame of whatever evil still adhered to them, not on the renewed and risen soul, but on that dead and defiled body which would not let the soul purely and freely live. And, worse than that, it led them to argue, that the amount of evil, more or less, which might still ad- here to them, was really very much a matter of indifference, since, being all centered in the body, it would be all got rid of when the body was cast aside.
"Thus by brief stages their error led to sin. The speculative argument for licence was but too congenial. They might wallow in the filth and mire of moral pollution ; it would affect only that mortal part of them, which is hopelessly debased and doomed, at any rate, already. The leprosy, however loathsome, would ere long be buried in the tomb, with that mortal part strWch alone it touches. Their spiritual nature would then be pure and free.
Even in these early apostolic times, this vile and vicious logic of de- bauchery was beginning to infest the churches."
Besides the argument described, the importance of the resur- rection to the whole scheme of Scriptural revelation, beginning with death in Adam, is prominently maintained. The more diffi- cult topic of the probable nature of the future body, grounded on the well-known texts commencing with the simile of the sown seed, is ably treated in several sermons ; and the series closes with the lessons for good living to be drawn from the exhortation "to be steadfast, immoveable," and "abounding in the work of the Lord." As already intimated, the Discourses are not always free from errors in logic, or literary faults ; but they are undoubtedly far superior to the general run of sermons, in vigour of style, power of reasoning, and force if it is not to be called felicity of illustration.
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